WaPo Columnist Is ‘Really Encouraged’ by Jeff Bezos

Michelle Singletary, the personal finance guru, has truly seen it all. She has worked in radio, once hosted her own TV show (the now defunct Singletary Says) and currently writes “The Color of Money” column for the Washington Post, which is syndicated in more than 100 newspapers around the country.

In the latest installment of Mediabistro’s So What Do You Do?, Singletary talks about the state of newspapers, how she connects with readers and what she thinks of the paper’s new owner, Jeff Bezos:

He came and spoke to the newsroom, and I was pleasantly surprised. He was very down-to-earth. He doesn’t come off as being elitist. He’s just a really nice guy. He said a lot of things that agreed with my philosophy on how to deal with our customer base, which is primarily our readers. And he spent a lot of time talking about how we need to make our readers the center focus of what we do, even saying that may not necessarily win us Pulitzers, but it will win us with our readers and our customer base — and that’s what’s going to make us survive. So I’m really encouraged.